Bitcoin price continued to struggle to reclaim the $114,000 resistance mark today, as upside momentum remained weak amid fragile market confidence and persistent selling pressure.
The total crypto market cap briefly reclaimed the $4 trillion threshold in early trading but slipped back below it by late Asian hours, suggesting that any recovery remains tentative at best.
Broader sentiment stayed on edge. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index remained in “fear” territory, nudging up just one point to 44 from the previous day.
Against this cautious backdrop, most top altcoins saw muted activity.
Only a handful of gainers managed to stand out, led by Flare (FLR) and Immutable (IMX), which posted modest upside while the rest of the market treaded water.
Bitcoin continued to struggle under $114,000 as the broader market slump deepened, compounding the sharp losses from earlier this week that saw over $1.7 billion in liquidations.
A brief recovery attempt faded quickly, and with momentum still missing in action, bulls have found little ground to reclaim control.
The weakness isn’t just technical; investor confidence remains shaky, and there’s little in the current environment to suggest a meaningful reversal is underway.
Heavy outflows from exchange-traded funds continue to drag on price, with sellers firmly in control.
On Wednesday, BTC/USD dipped to $111,115 on Bitstamp before crawling back toward $113,000, but the price action remained directionless, with both bulls and bears lacking the strength to force a decisive move.
Adding to the bearish sentiment were long-term whales, who have been quietly trimming their holdings throughout the past month.
According to CryptoQuant’s Julio Moreno, whales offloaded roughly 147,000 BTC over the last 30 days, a net reduction worth more than $16.5 billion at current prices.
That’s more than 2.7% of the total BTC held by this group, and Moreno called it the fastest monthly rate of balance decline in the current cycle.
Fellow analyst Darkfost added that this selloff wasn’t spread thin across various actors, but mostly driven by long-term holders.
Wallets aged between 6 and 12 months have been particularly active, executing more than ten large transactions since early September, each averaging around 8,500 BTC.
At $115,000 per coin, that translates to nearly $10 billion in potential sell pressure hitting the market, and that kind of sustained outflow isn’t something that buyers can easily absorb, especially in a sentiment-driven downturn.
Another factor weighing heavily is the looming $17.5 billion options expiry scheduled for later this week.
Traders are increasingly focused on the “max pain” level, in this case, $107,000, as a potential magnet for price action.
Historically, Bitcoin tends to gravitate toward that level during major expiries, and some traders believe the final leg down hasn’t hit yet.
At the same time, Crypto investor Ted Pillows pointed out that BTC usually bottoms in September, but warned that a deeper dip may precede any lasting rebound.
For now, the ingredients for a reversal are still missing and the next big move could still lean south.
Social sentiment was largely tilted to the bearish side, with online chatter dominated by predictions of a drop toward the $70,000–$100,000 range.
According to Santiment, such bearish calls have far outweighed any expectations for a rally to the $130,000–$160,000 zone, suggesting a clear tilt in crowd psychology toward downside risk in the near term.
In markets driven heavily by narrative and positioning, this overwhelming pessimism could act as a contrarian indicator, but only once selling pressure has been fully digested.
Historically, September has rarely been kind to Bitcoin, often delivering negative monthly closes.
This year, however, BTC remains up by about 5% for the month, even after the recent slide.
Still, with less than a week to go before the monthly candle closes, traders are growing cautious once again.
Adding to that short-term caution is the expectation of one more leg lower.
Analyst Ted Pillows reiterated earlier this week that further downside would be consistent with past post-rate cut behaviour from the Fed.
In his view, markets often wobble after cuts before eventually stabilising and pushing higher once fear is absorbed by opportunistic buyers.
“Big players usually like to buy fear,” he wrote, hinting that a final flush might be part of the process.
A similar take came from fellow analyst BitBull, who also flagged the possibility of a retest in the $103,000–$105,000 zone before any serious bounce.
If prices do revisit that range, the combination of bearish positioning, fear-driven liquidations, and options expiry dynamics could set the stage for a sharp reversal as short-term bears crowd in too late and whales reload quietly behind the scenes.
When gauging by the Bitcoin liquidation heatmap for the past 24 hours, it becomes clear that a significant concentration of liquidation clusters has formed just below the $114,000 mark, precisely where Bitcoin faced resistance throughout the day.
A clean breakout above $114,000 could open the door to a move toward $116,000, a level where heatmap density tapers off, meaning fewer trapped positions and less friction for bulls.
On the downside, the heatmap also highlights a band of strong historical liquidation density between $111,000 and $112,000. This region has acted as a key support zone throughout the session, absorbing repeated attempts to drive prices lower.
The relatively muted liquidation response near $111,000, compared to the more aggressive upper wick liquidations, points to a safer footing for now, with fewer leveraged longs getting flushed out in that area.
However, it’s worth noting that deeper pockets of liquidation risk remain lurking lower, particularly in the $107,000–$109,000 zone, a region that lines up with the “max pain” threshold for this Friday’s $17.5 billion options expiry.
If BTC were to lose the $111,000 foothold, that pocket could magnetise price further downward, especially if sentiment turns more reactive.
For now, Bitcoin would need to not only break above $114,000 but also hold it as new support to flip the market structure convincingly.
Without that follow-through, any upside wicks are likely to get sold into, as seen in today’s failed breakout attempt.
At press time, Bitcoin price was $113,703 with less than 1% gains over the past 24 hours.
The altcoin market cap saw sharp swings in the past 24 hours, falling from $1.73 trillion to $1.70 trillion before rebounding to $1.74 trillion, up 0.5% over the day.
Ethereum (ETH), the leading altcoin by market cap, experienced a sharp fall below the $4.1k support level briefly before recovering back to $4,187 as of press time.
Other large-cap cryptocurrencies such as XRP (XRP), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Tron (TRX) posted gains ranging between 1-3% over the day.
The top gainers for the day managed to hold better-than-average gains by the day’s end.
Flare (FLR) and Immutable (IMX) led the top 100 tokens, with double-digit gains of 12.5% and 11.6%, and Zcash (ZEC), followed with gains of 9%.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Flare: FLR’s price gains come on the back of the launch of its first FAsset, FXRP, a wrapped form of XRP on the Flare mainnet. The rollout gives XRP holders a direct entry point into Flare’s EVM-based DeFi ecosystem.
Users can either mint FXRP themselves or acquire it through supported DEXs, which can then be traded, lent, or supplied as liquidity across Flare-based platforms to earn yield rewards.
Flare is also offering high incentive rewards for FXRP liquidity pools, such as FXRP/USDT0 on platforms like SparkDEX, BlazeSwap, and Enosys, potentially reaching up to 50% APR.
Immutable: The main catalyst driving IMX’s price today is renewed demand from whales and smart money. According to data from Nansen, these investors have ramped up their accumulation of the token over the past few days, especially after the project unveiled its mobile gaming division.
The token’s gains have also been supported by a jump in demand for Immutable-based NFTs during the same period, data from CryptoSlam show.
Zcash: While no particular catalyst could be identified for ZEC’s gains today, it could likely have been driven by renewed community discussions surrounding privacy coins, besides a jump in speculative interest among traders.
Over the past 24 hours, Zcash’s Open Interest (OI) has also surged as high as 39% today, reaching $20.7 million.
Meanwhile, its OI-weighted funding rate was at 0.0122%, which means that traders are highly bullish, and this sentiment is supporting the upside.
The post Bitcoin price rangebound under $114k, FLR, IMX lead altcoin gains appeared first on Invezz
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Bitcoin price continued to struggle to reclaim the $114,000 resistance mark today, as upside momentum remained weak amid fragile market confidence and persistent selling pressure.
The total crypto market cap briefly reclaimed the $4 trillion threshold in early trading but slipped back below it by late Asian hours, suggesting that any recovery remains tentative at best.
Broader sentiment stayed on edge. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index remained in “fear” territory, nudging up just one point to 44 from the previous day.
Against this cautious backdrop, most top altcoins saw muted activity.
Only a handful of gainers managed to stand out, led by Flare (FLR) and Immutable (IMX), which posted modest upside while the rest of the market treaded water.
Bitcoin continued to struggle under $114,000 as the broader market slump deepened, compounding the sharp losses from earlier this week that saw over $1.7 billion in liquidations.
A brief recovery attempt faded quickly, and with momentum still missing in action, bulls have found little ground to reclaim control.
The weakness isn’t just technical; investor confidence remains shaky, and there’s little in the current environment to suggest a meaningful reversal is underway.
Heavy outflows from exchange-traded funds continue to drag on price, with sellers firmly in control.
On Wednesday, BTC/USD dipped to $111,115 on Bitstamp before crawling back toward $113,000, but the price action remained directionless, with both bulls and bears lacking the strength to force a decisive move.
Adding to the bearish sentiment were long-term whales, who have been quietly trimming their holdings throughout the past month.
According to CryptoQuant’s Julio Moreno, whales offloaded roughly 147,000 BTC over the last 30 days, a net reduction worth more than $16.5 billion at current prices.
That’s more than 2.7% of the total BTC held by this group, and Moreno called it the fastest monthly rate of balance decline in the current cycle.
Fellow analyst Darkfost added that this selloff wasn’t spread thin across various actors, but mostly driven by long-term holders.
Wallets aged between 6 and 12 months have been particularly active, executing more than ten large transactions since early September, each averaging around 8,500 BTC.
At $115,000 per coin, that translates to nearly $10 billion in potential sell pressure hitting the market, and that kind of sustained outflow isn’t something that buyers can easily absorb, especially in a sentiment-driven downturn.
Another factor weighing heavily is the looming $17.5 billion options expiry scheduled for later this week.
Traders are increasingly focused on the “max pain” level, in this case, $107,000, as a potential magnet for price action.
Historically, Bitcoin tends to gravitate toward that level during major expiries, and some traders believe the final leg down hasn’t hit yet.
At the same time, Crypto investor Ted Pillows pointed out that BTC usually bottoms in September, but warned that a deeper dip may precede any lasting rebound.
For now, the ingredients for a reversal are still missing and the next big move could still lean south.
Social sentiment was largely tilted to the bearish side, with online chatter dominated by predictions of a drop toward the $70,000–$100,000 range.
According to Santiment, such bearish calls have far outweighed any expectations for a rally to the $130,000–$160,000 zone, suggesting a clear tilt in crowd psychology toward downside risk in the near term.
In markets driven heavily by narrative and positioning, this overwhelming pessimism could act as a contrarian indicator, but only once selling pressure has been fully digested.
Historically, September has rarely been kind to Bitcoin, often delivering negative monthly closes.
This year, however, BTC remains up by about 5% for the month, even after the recent slide.
Still, with less than a week to go before the monthly candle closes, traders are growing cautious once again.
Adding to that short-term caution is the expectation of one more leg lower.
Analyst Ted Pillows reiterated earlier this week that further downside would be consistent with past post-rate cut behaviour from the Fed.
In his view, markets often wobble after cuts before eventually stabilising and pushing higher once fear is absorbed by opportunistic buyers.
“Big players usually like to buy fear,” he wrote, hinting that a final flush might be part of the process.
A similar take came from fellow analyst BitBull, who also flagged the possibility of a retest in the $103,000–$105,000 zone before any serious bounce.
If prices do revisit that range, the combination of bearish positioning, fear-driven liquidations, and options expiry dynamics could set the stage for a sharp reversal as short-term bears crowd in too late and whales reload quietly behind the scenes.
When gauging by the Bitcoin liquidation heatmap for the past 24 hours, it becomes clear that a significant concentration of liquidation clusters has formed just below the $114,000 mark, precisely where Bitcoin faced resistance throughout the day.
A clean breakout above $114,000 could open the door to a move toward $116,000, a level where heatmap density tapers off, meaning fewer trapped positions and less friction for bulls.
On the downside, the heatmap also highlights a band of strong historical liquidation density between $111,000 and $112,000. This region has acted as a key support zone throughout the session, absorbing repeated attempts to drive prices lower.
The relatively muted liquidation response near $111,000, compared to the more aggressive upper wick liquidations, points to a safer footing for now, with fewer leveraged longs getting flushed out in that area.
However, it’s worth noting that deeper pockets of liquidation risk remain lurking lower, particularly in the $107,000–$109,000 zone, a region that lines up with the “max pain” threshold for this Friday’s $17.5 billion options expiry.
If BTC were to lose the $111,000 foothold, that pocket could magnetise price further downward, especially if sentiment turns more reactive.
For now, Bitcoin would need to not only break above $114,000 but also hold it as new support to flip the market structure convincingly.
Without that follow-through, any upside wicks are likely to get sold into, as seen in today’s failed breakout attempt.
At press time, Bitcoin price was $113,703 with less than 1% gains over the past 24 hours.
The altcoin market cap saw sharp swings in the past 24 hours, falling from $1.73 trillion to $1.70 trillion before rebounding to $1.74 trillion, up 0.5% over the day.
Ethereum (ETH), the leading altcoin by market cap, experienced a sharp fall below the $4.1k support level briefly before recovering back to $4,187 as of press time.
Other large-cap cryptocurrencies such as XRP (XRP), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Tron (TRX) posted gains ranging between 1-3% over the day.
The top gainers for the day managed to hold better-than-average gains by the day’s end.
Flare (FLR) and Immutable (IMX) led the top 100 tokens, with double-digit gains of 12.5% and 11.6%, and Zcash (ZEC), followed with gains of 9%.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Flare: FLR’s price gains come on the back of the launch of its first FAsset, FXRP, a wrapped form of XRP on the Flare mainnet. The rollout gives XRP holders a direct entry point into Flare’s EVM-based DeFi ecosystem.
Users can either mint FXRP themselves or acquire it through supported DEXs, which can then be traded, lent, or supplied as liquidity across Flare-based platforms to earn yield rewards.
Flare is also offering high incentive rewards for FXRP liquidity pools, such as FXRP/USDT0 on platforms like SparkDEX, BlazeSwap, and Enosys, potentially reaching up to 50% APR.
Immutable: The main catalyst driving IMX’s price today is renewed demand from whales and smart money. According to data from Nansen, these investors have ramped up their accumulation of the token over the past few days, especially after the project unveiled its mobile gaming division.
The token’s gains have also been supported by a jump in demand for Immutable-based NFTs during the same period, data from CryptoSlam show.
Zcash: While no particular catalyst could be identified for ZEC’s gains today, it could likely have been driven by renewed community discussions surrounding privacy coins, besides a jump in speculative interest among traders.
Over the past 24 hours, Zcash’s Open Interest (OI) has also surged as high as 39% today, reaching $20.7 million.
Meanwhile, its OI-weighted funding rate was at 0.0122%, which means that traders are highly bullish, and this sentiment is supporting the upside.
The post Bitcoin price rangebound under $114k, FLR, IMX lead altcoin gains appeared first on Invezz
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